Craig Pennell wasn’t always in the car business. His background in advertising has proven to be quite useful in creating his personal brand around selling cars at Steele Chevrolet in Nova Scotia. Known as “Your GM Truck Guy”, Craig believes video is the way to connect with customers…
“I treat my videos like an ad. People spend millions of dollars marketing their products online or on television, and with video, it creates an emotional connection. But when I’m sending that ad to them personally, they think “Wow this is actually geared toward me.” It helps them to take mental ownership of the vehicle.”
Don’t take our word for it, check out what Craig has to say about how and why this strategy works for him…
EFFORT.
“I don’t put this much effort into a video for everyone. If it’s someone local then I’ll shoot something quickly just to get them more interested and get them in the showroom. But when it’s someone who is further away or out-of-province, then I’ll really get them licking their chops with the videos.”
EDITING.
“I use editing software like Movie Maker and Photoscape to create the drama and graphics. I usually spend about 20 minutes from beginning to end on a video like this one. I also have shorter videos where it only take me 5 or so minutes. I have pre-made graphics and I just pop them in there with some music and it only takes a few minutes.”
“The first few I did obviously took more time. Now, I have a couple good spots where I’ll park the vehicle, I know which angles are going to work better, I know where the lighting is going to come from, I know how I want to edit it. It sounds like it takes a lot but when you do it a few times it becomes fairly effortless and it really doesn’t take much time.”
WHO?
“We get a lot of out-of-province customers. If I feel like they’re interested in a pretty high-end car or truck, I’ll put more into it. I’ll treat it as if they were in my showroom and do a full presentation. Videos like that take longer, with good graphics, and good editing to make them fall in love with it. I have a guy flying in on Monday to pick up a truck that I did a video on earlier this week.”
BRANDING.
“I know the importance of social media marketing and I created my own website just to have another place for people to go. I really wanted to have a presence, especially on Facebook. By putting my personal brand into all of my videos, I’m driving traffic to my Facebook page and tying it all together.”
To see more winners of Video of the Month, click here.
